Saudi Arabia is free of Ebola virus

Saudi Arabia is free of the Ebola virus disease, declared Saudi Acting Minister of Health Adel Faqeeh, at a GCC-sponsored meeting here on Wednesday dedicated to consecrating means to confront this deadly virus.
Faqeeh phoned in this declaration to the meeting of the executive bureau of the GCC council of ministers of health attended by GCC health officials seeking coordination among themselves regarding the Ebola virus and other health considerations ahead of the oncoming season of the Hajj pilgrimage to Makkah.
Furthermore, Faqeeh said that Saudi health authorities have taken all precautions to ensure that the Hajj season this year would not be disrupted by any untoward event of any kind.
Toward that goal, he said that the ministry of Health has set up a national command and control center at the ministry, underscoring his country's indefatigable efforts in recent months to confront the Ebola virus disease.
On his part, the executive bureau's director general Dr. Tawfiq Khoja said the bureau has been instrumental in keeping track of the Ebola virus through its connections with international health organizations such as the WHO, the CDC in the United States, and the ECDC in the EU.
He emphasized the need for consensus among GCC members regarding the unification of protocols on the occurrence of communicable diseases in the region and collective means to deal with these diseases once they appear.
Today's meeting was called by the executive bureau to primarily unify procedures among GCC member states, especially banning travel and visa entries, if the need arises in order to fight the onset of the Ebola virus disease.